Signal and
Telegram are down for many users [Update: they’re coming back]

for the time being: it appears popular encrypted
messenger Signal is currently down globally, according to numerous
reports from users.

The company behind the private messaging platform,
Open Whisper Systems, has yet to inform its users what is causing the
server downtime. At the time of writing, the Twitteraccounts
of both Open Whisper Systems and Signal remain silent.

For more than a year, Jonathan Albright has served
as something of a one-man General Accounting Office for the tech
industry. The researcher at Columbia University's Tow Center for
Digital Journalism has dug into the details on how political Twitter
trolls manipulate
the media, and unearthed an
intricate web of conspiracy theory videos on YouTube.

… Facebook told Congress last fall that it had
deleted 170 Instagram accounts linked to the IRA. Albright found 27
of the accounts, confirming they were Agency accounts by
cross-referencing against Congressional exhibits or media mentions.
He downloaded data on those sites in October using a social media
analytics site called SocialBlade and found they had nearly 2.2
million followers combined. If such a small fraction of the total
Instagram accounts had 2.2 million followers, how many followers did
the Russian trolls have on Instagram altogether?

On February 21, 2018, the Securities and
Exchange Commission (SEC) issued an interpretive Commission
Statement and Guidance on Public Company Cybersecurity Disclosures
(the “Guidance”) to assist public companies in meeting their
cybersecurity disclosure requirements under the federal securities
laws. The Guidance notes that, as reliance on networked systems and
the Internet have increased, so too have the risks and frequency of
cybersecurity incidents, and companies
have no choice but to incur the considerable costs of addressing
information security risks, particularly in the wake of a
cybersecurity incident. Examples of such costs include IT costs,
employee training, remediation expenses, litigation, agency
investigations and enforcement actions, reputational harm and damage
to long-term shareholder value.

Automatic Data Processing Inc. deployed a team of
cybersecurity, risk management and financial-crime specialists to
WorkMarket before acquiring it in January.

The ADP team combed the software maker’s
technology, practices and internal policies. It also interviewed
staff about monitoring for intrusions, training employees and
performing other security tasks. The payroll processor also hired a
cybersecurity firm to do its own evaluation.

ACLU: “The TSA and Amtrak Police are trying out
new see-through body scanners in New York City’s Penn Station that
raise serious constitutional questions. And as is so often the case,
the government is not being sufficiently transparent about the
devices, how they will be used, on whom, and where they will
eventually be deployed. We also don’t know who will have access to
the information they collect or for how long. There is also reason
to believe the technology may not work as well as the TSA says it
does. This “passive millimeter wave” technology works by
detecting the heat radiating from the human body and analyzing ways
in which those emanations may be being blocked by objects hidden on a
person’s body. The machines do not emit x-rays or other radiation.
The theory is that the operator of the technology will be able to
tell if large object such as a suicide vest device is present
underneath a person’s clothing. The technology uses an algorithm
to determine whether there is an anomaly. The two devices in use are
the Stand
Off Explosive Detection Technology created by QinetiQ, and
Digital
Barriers from Thruvis…”

Perspective. Perhaps an indication that we will
not be able to counter Russia in the Midterms and possibly not in
2020.

Since December 2016, Congress has given the State
Department $120 million to counter foreign attempts to hijack U.S.
elections and sow distrust in American democracy, and Secretary of
State Rex Tillerson has spent none of that money, The
New York Times reports. "As a result, not one of the
23 analysts working in the department's Global Engagement Center —
which has been tasked with countering Moscow's disinformation
campaign — speaks Russian, and a department hiring freeze has
hindered efforts to recruit the computer experts needed to track the
Russian efforts."

Smartphone
users are spending more money each time they visit a website

… The amount of money
people spent per visit to online retailers has increased 27 percent
since the beginning of 2015, according to new
data from Adobe Analytics. Meanwhile, the length of smartphone
website visits has actually declined 10 percent.

That means people are getting
more comfortable spending on mobile — as long as the experience is
quick and easy.

Kaizena,
originally just a tool for voice commenting on Google Docs, can also
be used to add voice comments to PDFs and Word documents. The
process of using Kaizena for voice commenting on PDFs and Word
documents isn't quite as streamlined as it is for Google Docs, but
it's still fairly easy to do. Watch my
video that is embedded below to learn how to add voice comments
to PDFs and Word documents.

Last night I watched Dr.
Cal Newport's TEDx Talk titled Quit
Social Media. In this thought-provoking talk Dr. Newport presents
the case for quitting social media. He presents the case from the
standpoint that social media fragments our attention and prevents us
from doing deep work. To help people come to grips with the idea of
quitting social media Dr. Newport gives rebuttals to the three most
common reasons for not quitting social media.

Links

About Me

I live in Centennial Colorado. (I'm not actually 100 years old., but I hope to be some day.) I'm an independant computer consultant, specializing in solving problems that traditional IT personnel tend to have difficulty with... That includes everything from inventorying hardware & software, to converting systems & data, to training end-users. I particularly enjoy taking on projects that IT has attempted several times before with no success. I also teach at two local Universities: everything from Introduction to Microcomputers through Business Continuity and Security Management. My background includes IT Audit, Computer Security, and a variety of unique IT projects.